The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,82

front of me, and turned to walk back out. “For Karen Planter,” he said, with his back turned to me.

“What the heck?” I halfway asked.

He had placed a box of Lovely’s Assorted Chocolates in front of me, the largest gift box that the Lovely Chocolate Company offered, which must have been in the $500 dollar range. Nobody in the blue collar world could afford this stuff, so how could government agents? I ventured to ask that very question, and said, “How did you FBI agents get this stuff? Confiscation?”

“You’re free to go,” said Agent Belken. “Your car was brought here and is in the parking lot, towards the back, of course.” The large Russian/Agent Carter helped me up and to the door. I walked out into the hallway, carrying the box under my arm. These three agents walked me down the hall towards a large reception area, an area which somehow seemed familiar.

I had seen it earlier that day! We were in the Lovely Chocolate Factory! I was being ushered out the back way towards the back parking lot! I noticed that all the receptionists and secretaries were keeping their heads down, as though they didn’t want to see what was walking through the room.

When we reached the door to the parking lot, I said, “You’re not FBI!”

“That’s right,” said Agent Huebner, holding the door open.

“You’re….!” I stopped myself.

The three men laughed. “That’s right.”

Then… while walking towards the parking lot, all sorts of questions went through my mind. “What was that all about? Why did you bring me back here? Why the treatment?”

The men stopped to look at me. I immediately looked down at the sidewalk; I didn’t want to recognize them, or to remember them, and I wanted them to know that.

“I guess we owe you that, Mr. Owen,” said “Agent Huebner.” “We wanted to see if you would crack; we wanted to see if you would tell the world about us.”

“I don’t know anything about you,” I said. “All I know is I met with members of the board.”

“You’re a smart man, Mr. Owen,” said “Agent Belken.”

“Answer me one more question, if you would,” I said.

“Only one?”

“Well, maybe two.”

“Shoot.”

I looked around, making sure nobody was holding a gun on me. Agent Huebner said, “Just a figure of speech, Mr. Owen. I meant ‘go ahead.’”

“Do you still deal in gems, microfilm, illegal smuggling?”

“Agent Huebner” laughed. “Mostly we deal with chocolate, Mr. Owen. Sometimes we have to smuggle it across borders to avoid tariff and taxes, and we always get it into the hands of paying customers, who are among the wealthy, and many times high up in their respective governments. Most of our gem and microfilm smuggling went out with the Cold War, and we quit running drugs and munitions a looong time ago. It was too risky and caused bad public relations. But everybody likes chocolate, especially ours.”

I thought that “Agent Huebner” enjoyed talking, or else he was really proud of his work. I nodded as he spoke; it acted as a pump to keep him talking.

“Did you know our chocolate is used as currency on the black market in some countries?” he said. “It’s like cigarettes in jail, used in trade. In some parts of the world, it’s traded for food, wheat, land; the list is endless. We’re not just making chocolate, Mr. Owen, we’re printing money!”

“Wow,” was all I could say. “A mint!”

“Da,” said “Agent Carter.” “And ve put mints in our mint!” He laughed at his joke.

“What was your second question, Mr. Owen?” said “Agent Belken.”

“Earlier when ‘Agent Huebner’ took his phone call, what was -- ‘taken care of’?”

We had reached my car, far out at the end of the parking lot. They opened the door for me, and I got in. “Agent Belken” leaned over the driver’s side door and said in a grim voice, “Dr. Franklin Burke, he’s been taken care of.”

I was too late.

Destruction

The “special agents” left me in my car, so I felt it was time to put as much distance between myself and the Lovely Chocolate Factory as possible. I headed straight over to the West Side of town, to the neighborhood of Dr. Franklin and Helen Ceraldi-Burke. Turning on their street, I could see lots of cars lining the road, and police cars in the Burkes’ driveway to the courtyard. There were people who were coming out of their houses, neighbors walking over to the Burkes’ front door, an unusual sight in a suburb where the mansions were spread